Calvin19 0 #76 September 20, 2011 I think the mindset of the pilots and the aircraft's support/design/maintenance play a huge factor in the difference between the two. I agree that they are fairly similar, but I would consider the dangers of an air race significantly higher than an air show simply because everyone involved in the race is there to go as fast as possible, as well as put on a good, safe show. -SPACE- Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
obelixtim 150 #77 September 20, 2011 Quote Reno is my hometown and my mom was just at the air races yesterday...made me go into an absolute panic that she had also gone today, but she didn't...I feel so bad for everybody... Knowing quite a few deceased pilots through the years, and the shock that comes with it, this is a nasty thing to happen, whatever the circumstances. Sympathy to anyone affected by this tragedy......My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing.... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
squirrel 0 #78 September 20, 2011 and EAA article. http://us.mc1619.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?.gx=1&.tm=1316542710&.rand=alg3a6b1u1bph#_pg=showMessage&sMid=0&&filterBy=&.rand=1045872174&midIndex=0&mid=1_1357815_AMbSi2IAAJo9TnkOJQLV0gpePoY&f=1&fromId=newsletter@email.flyingmag.com&m=1_1357815_AMbSi2IAAJo9TnkOJQLV0gpePoY,1_1357155_AMfSi2IAAEceTnjXaA8nzHlTB9I,1_1356457_AMLSi2IAAGWiTnjGtw4GyRU6Aug,1_1338358_AOTTi2IAAOQsTnbYwQoZnVUuWD8,1_1337780_AODTi2IAAWsDTnayKQaMRloEPFo,1_1706_AMPSi2IAAM5%2FTnZ4CgFp%2FHPRsMg,&sort=date&order=down&startMid=0&hash=5a275b79cd6c144545de92baac7396d2&.jsrand=146463 ________________________________ Where is Darwin when you need him? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Calvin19 0 #79 September 21, 2011 Anyone able to find any quality, close up video of the airplane and impact? All the vids I can find are a long way off or the photographer turned away for the moment of impact. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Calvin19 0 #80 September 21, 2011 11 fatalities. Edit: Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1969912 0 #81 September 21, 2011 This is pretty close. Not so great quality. Page takes a while to load. Video will be at top of page after it fully loads: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2011/09/19/mb-reno-air-crash-hewitt-winnipeg.html "Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ." -NickDG Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
maxmadmax 8 #82 September 21, 2011 A bud of mine was there. Been to the last four shows. In the grandstands. Saw the impact. Got splatted with debri and blood. Told me about the severed arm with a watch. Saw a leg also. Tons of injuries. It was a surreal moment for sure. Don't go away mad....just go away! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pchapman 279 #83 September 21, 2011 QuoteAnyone able to find any quality, close up video of the airplane and impact? All the vids I can find are a long way off or the photographer turned away for the moment of impact. Nothing hi res or extra gory but a different view is seen in a short part within in a news video linked from http://www.theblaze.com/stories/horrific-new-video-shows-close-up-of-reno-plane-as-it-crashed/. The videographer was in the grandstands behind the impact area; Galloping Ghost comes directly overhead. The videographer (surprisingly) loses it from view only a moment. CNN has http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/09/20/von-reno-air-crash-new.kgw?hpt=hp_t2 -- a little better than the earliest videos but from a similar vantage point some way down the grandstands. The sound of impact - a rather bland thump really - sticks in one's mind. Best pics I've seen are still https://picasaweb.google.com/yahyoubetcha.net/RenoAirRaceCrash# (Other than the couple high res shots of the trim tab coming off, or tailwheel out during the dive - don't know if there are others in that series somewhere.) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Calvin19 0 #84 September 21, 2011 QuoteA bud of mine was there. Been to the last four shows. In the grandstands. Saw the impact. Got splatted with debri and blood. Told me about the severed arm with a watch. Saw a leg also. Tons of injuries. It was a surreal moment for sure. I'm sorry to hear that your friend was that close. It is sad that so many lives were lost, most of which had minimal acceptance of the risks. It should not have happened. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
squirrel 0 #85 September 21, 2011 QuoteQuoteA bud of mine was there. Been to the last four shows. In the grandstands. Saw the impact. Got splatted with debri and blood. Told me about the severed arm with a watch. Saw a leg also. Tons of injuries. It was a surreal moment for sure. I'm sorry to hear that your friend was that close. It is sad that so many lives were lost, most of which had minimal acceptance of the risks. It should not have happened. When someone attends these type of events, they need to understand the risks. But, I feel with movies, video games, computer graphics, and over all video of things today...there is a "softening" on the actual "energy" in what is taking place. Thousands of lbs. of aircraft, an engine pumped to the max, both pushed to the max.... things are going to fail, its physics, plane and simple, and most people fail to get this point. Before I was born, my parent were at a local sprint car race. Crash happened, and a wheel went flying up into the grandstands. My future dad pushed my future mom down and covered her, and the wheel slammed into the person behind them. She died. ________________________________ Where is Darwin when you need him? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Calvin19 0 #86 September 21, 2011 Quote I feel with movies, video games, computer graphics, and over all video of things today...there is a "softening" on the actual "energy" in what is taking place. Thousands of lbs. of aircraft, an engine pumped to the max, both pushed to the max.... things are going to fail, its physics, plane and simple, and most people fail to get this point. yep. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Calvin19 0 #87 September 21, 2011 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/21/ap/business/main20109273.shtml Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BillyVance 34 #88 September 21, 2011 QuoteWhen it comes to having four legs there's not much difference between a mouse and a giraffe, but you'd have to be pretty stupid not to notice that they're not the same. Next... I agree. All the airshows I've seen mostly involved planes putting on a rehearsed show, not racing at top speeds."Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
normiss 801 #89 September 21, 2011 That's exactly why they are called air "shows" vs. "races". There IS a difference. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ifall 0 #90 September 22, 2011 New theory I read today that the pilot's chair may have broken before the accident. Not sure how credible this site is or the people that suggested it as a possibility, just throwing it out there. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039871/Reno-air-crash-2011-Pilots-chair-broken-moments-impact.html#ixzz1YcE8xKA7 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Calvin19 0 #91 September 22, 2011 QuoteNew theory I read today that the pilot's chair may have broken before the accident. Not sure how credible this site is or the people that suggested it as a possibility, just throwing it out there. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039871/Reno-air-crash-2011-Pilots-chair-broken-moments-impact.html#ixzz1YcE8xKA7 Saw that. Very plausible. I assume the chair is modified for acceleration. Wether the chair or the trim tab caused the initial loss of control we will most likely never know for sure. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #92 September 22, 2011 QuoteNew theory I read today that the pilot's chair may have broken before the accident. Not sure how credible this site is or the people that suggested it as a possibility, just throwing it out there. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039871/Reno-air-crash-2011-Pilots-chair-broken-moments-impact.html#ixzz1YcE8xKA7 A seat slipping causing an accident is not unheard of, just ask anybody who has ever flown small Cessnas, but since we have photos of the trim tab separating in flight, it seems as if that's the more likely cause and whatever happened in the cockpit was probably more of the result. I doubt we'll ever know for certain.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sacex250 0 #93 September 22, 2011 QuoteNew theory I read today that the pilot's chair may have broken before the accident. Not sure how credible this site is or the people that suggested it as a possibility, just throwing it out there. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039871/Reno-air-crash-2011-Pilots-chair-broken-moments-impact.html#ixzz1YcE8xKA7 It's not a likely theory at all. Even if the seat back had broken, it wouldn't have caused this type of crash. Broken seat backs and unlocked seats usually happen on takeoff in which the pilot instinctively grabs the yoke/stick to keep from sliding back causing a pitch up and stall/spin at too low of an altitude to recover. That wasn't the case here. If Leeland was knocked unconscious by a pitch-up from a broken seat he would have let go of the stick which would have lessened the G-forces and the reclined position would've helped him recover from the G-LOC. A broken seat back and pitch-up doesn't explain the broken trim-tab, the flight path of the aircraft, or the photo of the pilot's head down in the cockpit. The photo in the article is misleading as well because the canopy of the pictured airplane is nothing like Galloping Ghost's modified canopy.It's all been said before, no sense repeating it here. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billvon 2,991 #94 September 22, 2011 >If Leeland was knocked unconscious by a pitch-up from a broken seat he would have >let go of the stick which would have lessened the G-forces and the reclined position >would've helped him recover from the G-LOC. That's an awful lot of assumptions there. In reality we can't know what the reaction would have been to a broken seat. It might have collapsed due to plain old G-loading in the turn, caused a violent pitch-up when he instinctively hauled back on the stick, and put a support through his groin once he pulled 12 G's as a result. It might have collapsed sideways and broken his neck once the G-forces increased. Impossible to know for sure. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sacex250 0 #95 September 23, 2011 Quote>If Leeland was knocked unconscious by a pitch-up from a broken seat he would have >let go of the stick which would have lessened the G-forces and the reclined position >would've helped him recover from the G-LOC. That's an awful lot of assumptions there. In reality we can't know what the reaction would have been to a broken seat. It might have collapsed due to plain old G-loading in the turn, caused a violent pitch-up when he instinctively hauled back on the stick, and put a support through his groin once he pulled 12 G's as a result. It might have collapsed sideways and broken his neck once the G-forces increased. Impossible to know for sure. ^^^Speaking of assumptions^^^ It's pretty much a universal fact that once a pilot G-LOCs his hand will fall off the stick and the airplane will then try to return to its trimmed 1G airspeed. If it's flying faster than its trimmed airspeed it will nose-up, if it's flying slower than its trimmed airspeed it will nose-down relative to the airplane's attitude. When an airplane is in a steeply banked turn, it requires a higher G-loading to maintain altitude, if the pilot releases the back pressure on the stick at low altitude then the airplane is going to go into the ground. Again, ignoring the broken trim tab, if Leeward G-LOC'd for any reason while in a steeply banked turn, the aircraft would immediately ease up the G-forces on its own widening the radius of the turn and the aircraft would have descended into the ground long before it would've ever reached the crowd, if it was still steeply banked. If the aircraft had managed to get wings level before the pilot G-LOC'd then the airplane would have simply returned to 1G flight and since it was at high power it would've started to speed up out of the turn and the aircraft would have started a shallow climb to try and maintain its trimmed airspeed. The problem here is that there's a missing trim tab which accounts for the airplane's violent and sustained nose-up pitch until it crashed. Had Leeward caused a violent pitch-up from a broken seat back, the pressure on the trim tab (lowered angle-of-attack) would have been reduced by the elevator's up movement and the increased angle-of-attack of the horizontal stabilizer causing less aerodynamic stress on the trim tab, not more. And, the trim tab would be a part of the airplane least affected by G-force because it actually produces many times its own weight in lift. It far more likely that the trim tab separated from the airplane while it was in a steeply banked turn causing the aircraft to violently pitch nose-up (tightening the turn) towards the inside of the course. Leeward was probably just able to start leveling the wings before he G-LOC'd which started the steep climb. The aircraft then continued to roll to the right from either the weight of some part of the pilot on the stick or the G-loading on the stick itself.It's all been said before, no sense repeating it here. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Calvin19 0 #96 September 23, 2011 Quote It far more likely that the trim tab separated from the airplanefirst, then the seat could have collapsed (if that happened at all, the tech who made that observation said the configuration of the seat and harness was so modified that the pilot would still be visible even in an unconscious state while it was in a steeply banked turn causing the aircraft to violently pitch nose-up (tightening the turn) towards the inside of the course. Leeward was probably just able to start leveling the wings before he G-LOC'd which started the steep climb. The aircraft then continued to roll to the right from either the weight of some part of the pilot on the stick or the G-loading on the stick itself. fixed it a bit/agreed -SPACE- Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1969912 0 #97 September 23, 2011 The seats in P-51D's are not adjustable fore-aft. There is height adjustment only. See post #157 here: http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/463880-big-crash-reno-8.html "Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ." -NickDG Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Calvin19 0 #98 September 23, 2011 QuoteThe seats in P-51D's are not adjustable fore-aft. There is height adjustment only. See post #157 here: http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/463880-big-crash-reno-8.html What I took from his statement was the seat collapsed, obviously not forward/rear sliding. The airplane was modified beyond all reason to assume anything was stock. My guess is (-IF- there was a seat failure at all [irrelevant, really. The final cause of loss of control and doomed the airplane was without a doubt the departed trim tab] The pilots head even in the harness and intact seat could still bend down to not be visible) the seat was improvised and collapsed, tilting back or fallen into the fuselage. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billvon 2,991 #99 September 23, 2011 >the aircraft would immediately ease up the G-forces on its own widening the radius of >the turn . . . . . . and may have continued to roll as well, decreasing the radius of turn. You can reduce AOA all you like - if you continue to roll in either direction you're going to eventually start a nearly vertical descent, as the roll cancels out any net lift. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1969912 0 #100 September 23, 2011 Yeah, I kinda jumped to the conclusion that sacex was talking about a sliding seat problem. The cockpit was likely built to fit that particular pilot, with no adjustment of seat position possible. I guess it's possible that the seat failed and let the pilot pass rearward through the bulkhead, but the builders were certainly aware of the incident with Voodoo that put the plane in an instantaneous and uncommanded 9+ G climb. "Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ." -NickDG Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
